Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2012 Jun;65(6):651-9.
doi: 10.1016/j.jclinepi.2011.10.014. Epub 2012 Mar 16.

Search filters can find some but not all knowledge translation articles in MEDLINE: an analytic survey

K Ann McKibbon  1 , Cynthia Lokker, Nancy L Wilczynski, R Brian Haynes, Donna Ciliska, Maureen Dobbins, David A Davis, Sharon E Straus
Affiliations
Review

Search filters can find some but not all knowledge translation articles in MEDLINE: an analytic survey

K Ann McKibbon et al. J Clin Epidemiol. 2012 Jun.

Abstract

Objective: Advances from health research are not well applied giving rise to over- and underuse of resources and inferior care. Knowledge translation (KT), actions and processes of getting research findings used in practice, can improve research application. The KT literature is difficult to find because of nonstandardized terminology, rapid evolution of the field, and it is spread across several domains. We created multiple search filters to retrieve KT articles from MEDLINE.

Study design and setting: Analytic survey using articles from 12 journals tagged as having KT content and also as describing a KT application or containing a KT theory.

Results: Of 2,594 articles, 579 were KT articles of which 201 were about KT applications and 152 about KT theory. Search filter sensitivity (retrieval efficiency) maximized at 83%-94% with specificity (no retrieval of irrelevant material) approximately 50%. Filter performances were enhanced with multiple terms, but these filters often had reduced specificity. Performance was higher for KT applications and KT theory articles. These filters can select KT material although many irrelevant articles also will be retrieved.

Conclusion: KT search filters were developed and tested, with good sensitivity but suboptimal specificity. Further research must improve their performance.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources